From Pampered Sons To Hit Men? -- Drug Allegations Rock Prominent Tijuana Families

TIJUANA, Mexico - The young men were offered all the advantages their wealthy parents could provide: family money, connections, Catholic-school educations in San Diego and the ability to pass with ease on either side of the U.S.-Mexico border.

But today, some of Tijuana's most prominent families are bracing themselves as these privileged native sons are described by authorities as hit men for Tijuana's alleged cocaine godfathers, the Arellano Felix brothers.

In an unusual statement filed recently in U.S. District Court in San Diego, Mexico's top anti-narcotics czar dropped the names of six young men allegedly recruited by Arellano henchmen. To the surprise - and outrage - of many here, the young men are members of the elite socioeconomic fraternity known in Mexico as "los juniors."

In the murky narcotics underworld, cartel foot soldiers usually are poor men seduced by the lure of easy cash. How did these juniors - upper-middle-class scions, who grew up in the shadow of the U.S. consulate with new cars and trendy clothes - catapult proud family names from the Tijuana social pages to the files of U.S. federal court?

For the juniors, the appeal may lie in the huge sums of money available - up to $15,000 for a quick run across the border - and the kicks and glamour of moving in an outlaw world where partying came second only to profits.

Now, allegations about the juniors' activities have prompted a fresh round of soul-searching in a city that has grown accustomed to mob-style violence, including the murders of seven Baja prosecutors and police commanders this year.

The case against the juniors spilled into U.S. courts after the Sept. 30 arrest of Emilio Valdez Mainero, 32, the baby-faced son of a deceased Tijuana colonel. Valdez "hires young assassins who belong to Tijuana's upper class," according to the statement by Francisco Molina Ruiz, commissioner of Mexico's National Institute for the Combat of Drugs, now on file in U.S. federal court.

Arrested along with Valdez was Alfredo Hodoyan Palacios, 25, the son of a prominent Tijuana business family who U.S. prosecutors say is wanted in Mexico for murder.

Valdez and Hodoyan were arrested by FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration agents Sept. 30 near Valdez's rented luxury apartment in Coronado Shores, a posh San Diego beach community, in a roundup of alleged Arellano henchmen after the Sept. 14 assassination of Baja California police commander Ernesto Ibarra Santes in Mexico City. Valdez was carrying a .38-caliber pistol, and an AK-47 assault rifle was found in a bedroom, court documents say.

Valdez's arrest was based on a relatively minor charge: failure to appear to answer to a Baja California firearms violation. Hodoyan was picked up on suspicion of the 1992 drive-by shooting of four men in Baja California, court documents say.

Subsequent Mexican allegations presented by Assistant U.S. Attorney Gonzalo Curiel on Oct. 15 accuse Hodoyan of direct involvement with the Ibarra killing and accuse Valdez of plotting two murders. Both, Curiel alleged, are members of the Arellano Felix organization, a group "dedicated to drug trafficking and the murder of competitors and law-enforcement officers who were investigating and prosecuting members."

Mexican officials have until Dec. 2 to prepare substantiating evidence and any further charges to support their request to extradite Valdez and Hodoyan, Curiel said.

Now, both are being held without bail in San Diego. Three other juniors named in court documents are at large. Yet another lies paralyzed in a hospital bed after being gunned down at the U.S.-Mexico border crossing. Law-enforcement authorities and community leaders have no firm estimates about how many of Tijuana's privileged juniors have fallen into the drug trade; at least 20 of them are believed to have died in its violence over the past decade.

For parents who once watched the boys play together in grade school at Tijuana's private Instituto Mexico, the official story is a bitter pill to swallow.

Cristina Palacios de Hodoyan said her son Alfredo, a graduate of St. Augustine Catholic school in San Diego, is the manager of family rental properties, not a gunman. She said that a Tijuana judge absolved him of the drive-by murder charge two years ago and that he was in San Diego when Ibarra was slain in Mexico City.

"These boys are from good families, known to all of Tijuana," Palacios said. "Everyone who lives here has the money to give their children opportunities, cars, private schooling, clothes, an allowance. If Alfredo said `Mama, I need a car,' I got him a car. I still pay for his gas. If he is broke, I pay his credit-card bill.

"Why would they be mixed up in this?"

Two blocks away, Valdez's aging mother, a near-invalid widowed in January, lives on a shaded avenue in one of the city's most exclusive neighborhoods.

"I am an honest, decent family woman who has spent my life completely dedicated to husband and children," she said. "This has been a terrible blow."

Community leaders say the alliance between rogue juniors and narcotics traffickers has been a disquieting tradition since the Arellano brothers moved into the affluent hillside neighborhoods.

"It is nothing new. Unfortunately, for the past eight years, drug traffickers have tightened their tentacles around boys from prominent families who are accustomed to lives of opulence," said Father Salvador Cisneros, rector of the Sagrado Corazon seminary in Tijuana.

Cisneros said traffickers view the juniors as vital strategic allies, because most can drive freely across the border and have become familiar with times when U.S. inspectors are less vigilant.

Some, like Hodoyan, were born in U.S. hospitals and became U.S. citizens, he said. U.S. officials say it is not uncommon for upscale Tijuana families to have relatives or homes on both sides of the border.